Chemistry lesson: in Adam & Steve, Craig Chester and Malcolm gets explore a screen romance grounded in the chemistry of two actual gay actors! Hollywood, are you getting this?

If you like your laughs broad and your endings happy, you'll get a kick out of the new romantic comedy Adam & Steve, now in theaters from Funny Boy Films. Known for starring in some of the darkest films of New Queer Cine ma--remember Swoon?--writer-director-star Craig Chester uncovers a warm comic presence in this story of two nice guys who fall in love despite an uproariously gross first date. He's also novelized Adam & Steve for Alyson Books, a sister company of this magazine.

Chester is expertly supported on-screen by real life best friend Parker Posey and Saturday Night Live's Chris Kattan, and his love interest is played by the out-and-foxy Malcolm Gets (Caroline in the City). Sitting down with The Advocate in Hollywood, Chester and Gets point out that even in this supposed era of greater gay visibility in Hollywood, what they're doing is almost unheard of: out gay actors playing out gay boyfriends--shocking!

Craig, why did you want to make this movie?

Chester: I wanted to write a screenplay to recapture the sense of irreverence lacking in indie film and especially gay films. And I wanted to do something silly and fun, with big emotions and a lot of heart. Traveling so much with gay films [I appeared in], I would always see gay couples at festivals. After seeing films like Swoon or I Shot Andy Warhol, they would always come up to me and go, "When are they going to make a movie about us--about a relationship, like, having a boyfriend?"

Malcolm, how did you get involved?

Gets: Craig and I met a few years ago socially and started to become friends. Shortly after that he said he'd written a screenplay and felt like I'd be right for the other role. He started to do readings, and I was in play after play and never available. Finally, there came a day when it worked out, and the first reading was Craig and me and Parker and Chris, and fortunately somebody videotaped it, so they had a document to pass along to companies like Funny Boy.

Chester: And Parker and Chris had good chemistry, and Malcolm and I had good chemistry. I don't think people are used to seeing gay couples with chemistry.

What qualities appeal to you in each other?

Gets: What started the relationship for me was a real camaraderie about being out in the industry and being of a similar age. God knows I was drawn to Craig's sense of humor and his smarts.

Chester: When you're an actor and you're openly gay, there are so few other openly gay actors that when you find one, you sort of hang on to them.

Gets: I thought so many of us were out. And about a month ago Craig e-mailed me a piece about Brokeback Mountain, and how the guys playing gay are straight ... and [the writer included] a list of openly gay actors. It was such a small list! I would think there were so many of us, but there aren't. We are living in the age of "don't ask, don't tell." I can't tell you how many friends I have who are on television right now, and everybody in the industry knows that they're gay and they live with partners or whatever, but they won't talk about it in the press.

Chester: I'm writing a script about Montgomery Clift, and I'm finding that, for the men that I've talked to from that era, it was exactly the same. Everybody knew Monty was gay in the industry, everybody knew Rock Hudson was gay in the industry. But they weren't out in the rest of the world.

Craig, I've read your memoir, Why the Long Face? So I know you've had some career consequences because you were out. Malcolm, has it cost you to be gay in the industry?

Gets: That's a good question. I don't know. I live in New York because I'm based in the theater and because my partner and I are there and our friends are there. I was up for a Tony Award in 2003 for playing the big old straight romantic leading guy opposite Melissa Errico [in the Michel Legrand musical Amour]. I would say that half my work in New York has been gay characters and half of it's been straight parts. And I feel like I'm valued as a leading man. But when I come out here to L.A.--I don't know what's going on, but I do know that this pilot season I've had very few auditions, and most of the scripts that have come my way have been for extremely flamboyant, effeminate characters. And that concerns me because I think that just because I admit to being gay, they think I'm that.

It's hard to believe that people are still so scared.

Gets: I was always hugely open about [being gay]; I never hid it from anybody. But it is a peculiar thing that until you say it to [The Advocate] or to Kathie Lee or whatever--I think what I struggle with the most is, I want to be at the point when it can just be like, "Oh, by the way, and here's my partner." But meanwhile I find myself talking about it a lot because I feel like nobody else is. It really, really pisses me off. I can't wait for the day when somebody on television who's still fuckable is also openly gay--and he plays either some charismatic straight guy or a gay guy like me, who wears the same pair of jeans eight days in a row and likes to watch sports. When that day comes I'll be dancing in the streets.

Some of your jokes recall the gross-out comedies of the Farrellys. I mean that in a nice way.

Chester: Oh, yeah. People say the film's got gross-out humor. But gross-out humor is not a straight male thing, it's a queer thing. John Waters started with gross-out humor.

Many young people see their sexuality as fluid, not gay. Is the gay struggle still important?

Chester: The first wave of queer cinema came out of AIDS activism. A lot of the people that worked on those films, myself included, were involved in ACT UP and politics, and that rage went into that. Now the relevant issue is marriage rights, and you have love stories for the first time, like Brokeback Mountain and Adam & Steve. The second wave of gay cinema is about love and matters of the heart. I was [recently] with a 21-year-old, and we were watching some drag queen who was doing political poetry, and my friend was like, "I don't feel oppressed." And I said, "You will when you fall in love."

What's fun about Adam & Steve and why should people see it?

Chester: It's the most fun you'll have at a gay film this year--or a film about gay people dealing with gay people. Gets: With a happy ending! Adam & Steve is a very life-affirming movie, and for me, as much as it's a gay movie, it's also about not being 25. It's a movie about guys--people-who are moving into middle age with all of their fricking baggage and at a certain point in time saying, Let's just simplify and choose love. [To Chester] Does that sound too hokey to you?

Chester: Not at all. I hope people leave the theater feeling romantically optimistic.

Gets: And come on, there are two musical numbers and singing. You could do worse!